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Four students laughing with each other

EAL learner wellbeing and academic performance

Author: Shalu Aara, EAL specialist
Created: Tue 5th Sep 2023

A learner’s wellbeing is vital to their achievement and overall success. Nevertheless, an EAL (English as an Additional Language) learner’s wellbeing should be considered more thoroughly when discussing their academic performance and achievements. A learner who speaks “a language other than English as their first language and needs additional support to develop a proficiency in English” (Twinkl, n.d) is considered to be an EAL learner. They can come from a diverse, multilingual and/or refugee background.

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Teacher talking about bullying

EAL learners: Combating bullying

Author: Christine Hanley, EAL Specialist
Created: Tue 15th Nov 2022

When I was teaching early literacy to adults some years ago, I had two teenage students from a refugee background join one of my classes. They were beginner-level English as an Additional language (EAL) learners and both were non-literate. They had been expelled from the local high school for fighting. At the time, there was a national fundraising campaign to support children in troubled parts of the world.

Read moreDownload Talking about bullying resource
Mother checking child's online safety on screen

Online safety for EAL learners

Author: Yzanne Mackay
Created: Sat 27th Nov 2021

Everyone recognises the importance of staying safe online - but it's not always straightforward. For many of us, computing - including social media, information technology and cybersecurity - is a whole new world, with its own conventions and language. Now consider the added element of dealing with all of this quite literally in a different language! That's the situation our EAL learners find themselves in. Having arrived in a new country, they need to learn English as quickly as possible, for social as well as academic reasons.

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Child learning remotely

EdTech: The emergency service for education in 2020!

Author: Yzanne Mackay
Created: Fri 19th Mar 2021

It's now almost exactly a year since the UK education system went into lockdown. The ruling that schools must close to almost all pupils was a shock to teachers, pupils, parents and everyone involved in the education system - and the repercussions of the immediate crisis continue to ripple through our lives.

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Girl online learning

Engaging EAL learners while learning remotely

Author: Sarah Jones, EAL coordinator, Lea Forest Academy
Created: Mon 8th Mar 2021

In January 2021, we commenced another lockdown in the UK and put our recovery curriculum on hold. The question on most of our minds was immediately: "How will our EAL learners progress without the English academic and social interaction school provides, and which they need in order to flourish in their language learning journeys?"

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Girl online learning

The language of 'online English'

Author: Catherine Brennan, Better Bilingual
Created: Mon 1st Feb 2021

To mute or to unmute? To reply to one or everyone? To use gallery or speaker view?

Read moreDownload Teaching 'online English' resource including flashcards

The role of an EAL teacher

Author: Anita Bamberger & Caroline Scott
Created: Sat 30th May 2015

In previous articles we discussed the need for learners to obtain Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS). These skills need to be the initial focus of learning alongside curriculum content in the early days. Class teachers are required to make significant adjustments to their programme of learning which is not an easy task, especially for those teachers who are new to teaching foreign languages.

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